


though love be a day

by possibilityleft



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 21:19:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4935727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/possibilityleft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pearl and Rose's last date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	though love be a day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [supernovas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernovas/gifts).



Rose was sitting on top of the lighthouse cliff, her back against the stone wall, looking out toward the horizon. The sun brushed the waves like a teasing caress, reddening. When Pearl approached, she saw that Rose's eyes were closed and she wore a small smile. She opened her eyes when Pearl approached, and her smile brightened. She gave Pearl that look that she didn't give anyone else, the one that made Pearl want to melt to her knees. Instead, she clutched the camera under her arm and smiled back.

"I brought it," she said. "I was right, it just needed a new tape and some small adjustments. Greg will be grateful, I'm sure." She tried not to sound bitter saying his name.

Rose swept to her feet and met Pearl halfway, enveloping her in a hug. Pearl inhaled deeply. The smell of roses, dirt, and summer heat greeted her nose. She rested her free hand on Rose's hip.

"Thank you," Rose said, kissing Pearl's gem, sending a shiver down Pearl's body. Breaking the hug, she took Pearl's free wrist and led her to the lighthouse. The two of them sat down in its shadow. Pearl tried to hand the video camera to Rose, but Rose set it down gently on the grass and pulled Pearl into her lap.

There wasn't as much lap as there had been before Rose became pregnant, but neither of them would say that now. For the sake of time, they'd given up fighting about it. Neither of them would change their minds, and rather than spend months at an impasse, Rose had given a command. Pearl obeyed. Rose didn't require anything of her anymore unless it was truly important, and Pearl would be loyal to the end.

(She'd always thought it would be the end of _her_.)

The problem was, Pearl wasn't always good at obedience, but Rose never minded. She kissed Pearl's cheeks until the tears stopped coming, and then they sat in silence for a while, Pearl pressed into Rose's body, feeling the confusion of a second heartbeat low against her belly. Pearl had been crying a lot lately, feeling like she was wringing her body dry. Crying should have made her feel better, but when the tears were over, it didn't change anything about the future.

"Pearl, my Pearl," Rose said, "would you sing for me?"

Pearl sang alone at first, and then Rose's voice joined hers, broadening the sound. They sang old songs from Homeworld and new ones that they had written, and some the humans had taught them. Laughing, they rose to dance, and although Rose couldn't fuse now, she swung Pearl around with a familiar vigor. When they were done, they stood together, both of them in the rising moonlight.

"Do you want to make your video now?" Pearl asked for a while. Rose leaned down carefully and picked up the camera before Pearl could offer to help her, but instead of giving it to Pearl to hold, she lifted it to her own eye.

"Let's start with you," Rose said. She pushed buttons until the red light appeared on the front of the camera. When Pearl didn't say anything, Rose lifted her eyebrows and grinned at her over the camera lens.

"With me?" Pearl said, taking a step back involuntarily. "I thought this was for you, Rose. I don't know -- what do you want me to say?"

"No, no, the point is what _you_ want to say," Rose said. "Steven will be just like a human baby for a long time. What do you want to say to him in a decade or two?"

"But I'll be there to say it, Rose," Pearl said, clutching at her elbow. "I promised."

"But that will be then," Rose said, giggling, "and this is now! Everything might be different by then. Come on, just a few words, and then you can record mine."

Pearl tried to smile at the black eye of the camera. "I don't know, Rose. You're right -- it won't be the same then. What if I say the wrong thing?"

Rose laughed, the camera shaking in her hands. "Oh, my dear Pearl. Don't worry."

She turned the camera off and when the light went dark, Pearl breathed a sigh of relief.

"Another time, maybe," Rose said. "Will you keep it for me?"

Pearl took the camera and stored it in her gem, and then the two of them walked slowly down the hill, Pearl's hand tucked around Rose's arm. They talked quietly about the places they had been and the people they had known. Pearl named them off like she hadn't done in decades, since the war first scraped them raw. Rose remembered them all too -- the pearls who had done the regulation and coordination of their forces, three of them to do her Pearl's job while Pearl fought; the quartzes and salts who had been born on Earth, and then died here; the Gems who could not project weapons but took them up anyway. And further back, the Gems they'd known on Homeworld -- the topaz with that funny laugh, the brilliant insights of the first sapphire they'd ever known: a sharp-tongued seer with two eyes, one blind to the present.

They talked about the Diamonds too. They talked about meeting Ruby and Sapphire, and then Garnet. Rose and Pearl had been together for a long time, ever since Pearl was made, and they shared a lot of history. The handler who had brought her to Rose had brought a second pearl too, just in case Rose was insulted by receiving a defective assistant. Pearl was obedient, but she talked too much, questioned far too frequently. She was terrible at shapeshifting, although at least her organizational skills were up to par. The other pearl could fill in for her weaknesses.

The spare pearl -- Pearl couldn't remember where she had gone. To another Diamond, she supposed, when Rose made it clear that Pearl was sticking around for good.

Pearl had outlived her projected lifespan by thousands of years by the time the war began. In any other Gem's service, she would have been dust. Pearl could have served Rose forever because of that alone, but Rose had been kind. Rose had confided in her. Rose had kissed her, and finally, on Earth, Pearl had had a way to put her feelings for Rose into words.

She had loved her for millennia.

Of course, Rose had known. When Pearl screwed up the courage to tell her, Rose had simply opened her arms and invited her in, like she always had. Pearl had always belonged with Rose, but now she was allowed to say it was something more. They wouldn't be Rainbow Quartz all the time; that wasn't the choice they made. Pearl liked to see Rose out in the world, meeting strangers and asking them questions. She didn't want them to be together as part of a larger being; she wanted to be there at her side. Of course, they did fuse sometimes, but they did other things together. Pearl wrote poetry for Rose in whichever human style was most popular at the time, but that was secondary to the dance.

In return, Rose gave her everything. Rose confided in her, sharing her hopes and dreams and fears. Rose let Pearl fuss over her and she didn't mind Pearl's weaknesses, claiming them as strengths as well.

Sometimes over the years, Rose had taken human lovers, but none of them could be more than a fraction of what Pearl was to Rose. Pearl tried her best to curb her jealousy, to throw herself into projects or other work, because she knew it would never last. It couldn't, even had Rose wanted it to. Rose liked to play with them, but she always got bored in the end, and Pearl would be there waiting for her return.

This time, all of Pearl's coping strategies had failed. It had been so long since she'd had to share Rose with anyone except the other Crystal Gems. She'd overreacted at the start, but then that overreaction turned out to be more of a premonition. Now, Pearl looked back at the past few years with a cringe. She should have been there for Rose, always, while they had the time.

The conversation had dropped off at some point a little earlier, comfortably, as they walked along the beach. Pearl had thought that Rose was lost in her own thoughts, until Rose stopped, her feet in the sand, and turned to Pearl.

"I will always love you," Rose said, and kissed Pearl slowly, like they had all the time in the world.


End file.
